The ability to identify pollutants, contaminants, illicit drugs and/or energetic compositions is of profound societal importance in such application areas as environmental monitoring, human health, and security. An important, analytical technique for such applications is mass spectroscopy.
As is known, mass spectroscopy is an analytical technique used to identify a mass-to-charge (m/Z) ratio of ions and ion fragments when a sample is ionized, and parent ions are sufficiently energized to fragment. Identifying the mass-to-charge ratio of the of the ion fragments provides identifying information about the parent ion and sample.
Much of the utility associated with conventional mass spectroscopy results from its generality and/or versatility—the ability to identify a wide variety of ions and samples from which they are derived. As will be readily appreciated by those skilled in the art, not all applications require such generality/versatility and its resulting “cost” as measured in both instrument complexity and/or monetary expense. Accordingly, systems, methods, and structures that provide compound specific mass spectrometry—while reducing the cost and/or complexity of mass spectrometers and techniques—would represent a welcome addition to the art.